


What Fades Away

by Chiomi



Series: Get Sharp [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Burns, Gen, Magical Stiles Stilinski, POV Scott, Pack Building, Pack Dynamics, Pining, Tattoos, destroying the Hale house, self-harm for ritual purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott runs harder. He said he’d wait for her, and he meant it, but he just wants to fast-forward through all the waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the morning when it's clear

Doing his evening workout routine has hardly taken any effort since he became a werewolf, so he tries to push it, push himself, and take it further, until he can actually feel the effort. It fills the evenings when Allison’s out with her new boyfriend and Stiles is too busy with his shiny new pack to spend time with his best friend. Scott tries not to feel too overwhelmingly bitter about it, but it’s hard. It’s hard, because Stiles said he’d always be there, and then he joined another pack.

And now his pack has fucking Jackson in it, and Stiles’ dad is dealing with his return even more seamlessly than he dealt with Peter’s, and Jackson’s spending days in the counselor’s office as they look at where his absence puts his schedule.

Scott stops riding his bike to work, because it’s more work to run, and then it’s easier to take off right after for the far side of town, away from the Hale house, and run through the Preserve there. It conveniently gets him out of the way of Derek’s pack as well as where Allison used to run. He doesn’t even know if she runs anymore, because they don’t talk anymore.

Scott runs harder. He said he’d wait for her, and he meant it, but he just wants to fast-forward through all the waiting.

Maybe on the other side Stiles won’t be a douche, too. Scott sees more of Isaac than Stiles lately, even though Isaac smells like Derek. Scott still hates Derek for taking away his chance to be normal. He hates who he turns into around Derek, too, because he’s colder and meaner. The werewolf business is turning him into a monster, and he has no idea how to stop it.

It’s changing all of them, and he’s never going to get over watching Stiles draw a knife down his arm, perfectly calm and practical, and then writhe in pain a few hours later. That was worse than when Allison tried to kill him, because getting rid of monsters is kind of the sane response.

He really hopes her dad doesn’t convince her of that long-term, though. He doesn’t want to be alone. Even being in this waiting place is eating at him, the longing for a pack gnawing beneath his skin. He clenches his fists as he runs, so that he can ignore the way his claws slip out, the way they slide into his skin.

He’s healing slower now that he’s alone. Isaac had noticed a bruise after lacrosse practice, once, had commented too low for humans to hear that the pack - like they’re the only one, like Scott has no one - has been healing even faster since Stiles joined, a side effect of his stolen magic. Because that’ll make him feel better about it, knowing that Stiles’ abandonment improved the lives of others.

Well, it would, actually, if said others didn’t include Derek. Derek’s been the harbinger of everything awful in his life for nearly a year, now.

“Hey, wanna come out to the Hale house with me?”

Scott looks disbelievingly at Stiles. “No.”

Stiles tightens his mouth and nods. “Okay, let me put it this way, then: you’re coming with me to the Hale house after school. No one will be there but us, but you’re definitely coming.”

“What don’t you understand about no?”

He shrugs, the kind of agitated tense move that Scott is used to getting him into trouble. Scott rolls his head back, cracking his neck, because he’s already halfway to giving in. Stiles has been getting him in trouble for years, and if it means Scott’ll get his bro back, it might actually be almost worth it. Stiles says, “Okay, yeah, you totally don’t have to go. It’s only like a sixty percent chance of me passing out and dying of exposure if I go on my own.”

Scott sighs gustily. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the parking lot after the bell.”

Stiles nods and pushes off his locker, heading off to his class just as the bell rings. Scott’s probably going to be late now, because he’s all the way over in the Physics room for first period. Fuck his life.

He makes it through the day, through the grind of class and the worse grind of lunch, with Allison smelling gorgeous and sitting with Lydia and her friends, talking about - something, honestly, he’s not paying attention to anything over there except Allison’s smell - and Derek’s pack shooting him significant looks, even Isaac who hasn’t sat with anyone but them since Jackson came back, and Stiles and Danny talking about magic quietly like this is something either of them should be involved with at all.

When he gets to the parking lot after school, Stiles is already there, twirling his keys on his finger. “Glad you decided to show, Scott.”

It’s faintly accusatory, and Scott does not deserve that. Not all the times he’s been trying to handle way too many things and saved Stiles’ ass anyway. “Screw you, dude.”

Stiles winces. “Yeah, I - just get in the car. We’re - well, me, actually - I’m doing a thing. You’re going to watch, because I don’t think you really understand.”

“What’s to understand? You have a pack now.” He can’t help but say it resentfully. It’s been getting harder to bite back telling Stiles exactly how he feels about being left alone. Stiles had said it was vital, but he could have found a better way, if he really wanted to.

Revving the Jeep, Stiles flexes a muscle in his jaw. He doesn’t say anything, though, which is how Scott knows this is important to him. Stiles only ever shuts up when he has feelings, which is basically the most annoying thing in the world. Scott doesn’t want to poke at him to get him to talk, and shouldn’t have to, so he just stares out the window and they drive in silence.

The leaves in the woods are mostly changed, the trees starting to look as bare and skeletal as they were when Scott was bitten. It’s only been eleven months since he was bitten and everything changed, and nothing shows any signs of improving, let alone going back to normal.

Stiles takes the Jeep up the Hale house’s long dirt driveway, and Scott can smell it already. It smells like burned wood and pain, and he doesn’t understand how Derek can spend any time there at all, even if he apparently doesn’t live there anymore. Combined with the gas and the fast food wrappers and Stiles’ new ozone smell, everything is kind of gross. Stiles pulls to a stop about thirty feet out and yanks the brake on, but leaves the keys in the ignition. “Okay, stay back. Don’t come more than like five feet past the Jeep.”

Scott raises his eyebrows, because Stiles isn’t usually this ridiculous. “Uh.”

“Seriously, just watch.” Stiles toes off his sneakers and tugs off his socks, then undoes his belt.

Scott’s seen Stiles naked before, but he doesn’t really want to watch some kind of impromptu strip show in the woods. “Dude?”

Stiles looks down at where he’s slipping his belt free, and looks confused for a minute before it breaks into a smirk. “Don’t worry, I just need to not be wearing metal.” He finishes taking off his belt, and puts it and his cell phone and his ring carefully next to his shoes. He takes a deep breath and shakes out his arms. “And, uh, don’t touch me until it’s over. There might be side effects.”

Scott raises his eyebrows as high as they can go. “Side effects? What are you doing?”

“I’m showing you why we couldn’t be pack anymore.” He steps barefoot over the dirt, then crouches down and digs his hands into the soil. The ozone smell intensifies, and there’s a smell of rotting wood.

Scott almost takes a step forward, because this all smells dangerous, but then realizes: Stiles knew this would happen. Stiles is actually causing it, or participating in it, and that’s creepy. If this is what magic’s done to him, made him smell gross and frightening as well as ditch his best friend, it wasn’t worth it and they should have found another way.

The rotting smell doesn’t abate, and the Hale house starts making noises. Quiet, at first, like he knows Stiles can’t hear, but then there are boards shifting against each other and one of the walls collapses. It smells like lightning and death, and the destruction of the Hale house accelerates, the remains of the top floor collapsing down. It’s a domino effect, the second floor falling to the first, sinking to the basement in a cloud of dust and magic.

The porch is still standing, disturbingly whole. Stiles is still clutching dirt, and the dry dead grass around him looks - well, less dead. It’s like spring has come early to this section of the Preserve. The smell of rot is mixing with the smell of grass growing, the same as his yard had smelled in February last year when the new growth was just starting. The grass greens around him, then the green runs in a straight shot towards the Hale house. It stops there, sinking down into the depths of the old wood.

The line of green widens a little, gets a little greener, but nothing else happens.

Scott shifts his weight, bored and uncomfortable. He doesn’t know what Stiles wanted him to see. Yes, he knows Stiles has magic. He hears him talk about it enough. The Hale house has been falling down for years anyway: it can’t have taken that much effort. The whole Disney princess making grass grow thing is neat, but it looks like it’s petered out. Scott could have handled it. Stiles was a little magic before, and Scott’s a werewolf. They could have done it. They’re, like, superhero bros, or they were until Stiles decided Scott still needed to be protected from everything like they were back in second grade or something.

The smell of rot turns into more of a compost-y smell, like it’s all decomposing very fast, and then Scott sees a flash of green. He takes a full step forward, because he wants to see, and catches a whiff of pain and sweat. It’s coming from Stiles on a waft of that ozone smell, but Stiles is still looking straight forward, so everything’s probably still okay. The green stuff is still moving, distinguishable now as a sapling, rising swiftly into being as a real tree. Scott can tell it’s an oak, now, even though it’s still growing like a time-lapse video spanning years. It shoots up and up, and branches out and gets thicker, and the smell of it is heavy in the air. Scott lived through Stiles first few mythology kicks, so he’s half-expecting gods and thunder just from the smell alone. The tree grows and grows, bigger than it should, and the porch finally collapses, a raised and rising root knocking out key supports. That seems to be some kind of trigger, or the first sign of overflow, because green grass rushes out now in a perfect circle from the house.

It floods towards them, and Stiles doesn’t move, but apparently he’s doing this - holy shit, Stiles is doing this. Scott steps back to press himself against the Jeep and watches his best friend make the forest grow; decades of growth in just a few minutes. This isn’t just closing a circle or nudging a falling thing to give in to gravity. This is purple flowers blooming now where they dug up half a body nearly a year ago, lupine and bleeding hearts and lavender, and the oak bursting into leaf as it gets taller than the Hale house used to stand and dropping acorns that sound like hail as they hit the ground. It smells like summer, with a high wild edge to it that has to be Stiles’ magic. The wave of grass hits Stiles and slows, stops just a couple feet beyond him.

The flowers keep blooming aggressively for another minute, two minutes, and then they stop, too. The oak is the last to stop, the rustling of the leaves calming from explosive growth to gentle movement in the breeze.

A black bird lights on one of the branches.

Stiles sags, but there’s only so far he can drop with his hands planted firmly in the grass. Effortfully, he straightens enough to flop to lie flat on his back. “Give me a minute,” he says, “and I’ll explain some magical theory to you.”

Scott finds his voice, finally. “Holy shit, dude.”

Scott stays pressed against the Jeep even as Stiles just lays there for a few minutes, because Stiles is still touching the ground and who the hell knows what could happen?

Stiles, when he speaks, sounds exhausted. “Deaton says that most practitioners’ capacity for magic grows as they use magic, and they collect energy from the world around them enough to fill their capacity. Having a pack is like extra capacity, because you guys are all magic anyway. But I grabbed way more energy from what’s-her-face than I had the capacity to hold, and even Derek’s pack wasn’t really enough extra capacity. And then I was also apparently still drawing energy from the world around me, because the training I was doing with Deaton is designed to help improve capacity along with my control and, like, basic knowledge of what I can do. Deaton didn’t want me doing anything big with it to try and bleed off the extra energy because I still basically have no control, but it was getting pretty bad. So I figured, can’t really hurt something that’s already this broken, so this was me dumping all the magic I could into this. Do you get it yet?”

“Yeah,” Scott says on a slow exhalation. “If it was just two of us, we’d have, like, blown up the school.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Stiles says, showing no inclination to move. “Plus even doing this, I still have way more capacity than I should - like, for years, if ever, if I’d done this the quote-unquote right way. So I probably need to find something to do magic on regularly for the rest of my life, or at least until I learn control. So basically the rest of my life.”

Scott slides down the side of the Jeep until his shoulders are against the door and he can prop his forearms on his knees. “Still, just because you have a pack, and you have to have a pack, does that mean you have to ditch me?”

“Scott,” Stiles says tiredly, “in the last two and a half months I’ve had mandatory range time with my dad every Saturday, I’ve had to try and take a crash course in magic from your boss - half of which you’ve been in the building for - help Lydia track down what species she is, including two attempts at intimidation and following her to dinner to be backup, come up with a plan to drive off that omega and keep other omegas away while keeping my dad his job, explain everything to Danny, get Danny into the pack, and deal with Jackson now being pack - which, sadly, is also my fault. I’ve been busy. Plus you never return my calls even when I am free.”

Scott watches the oak, watches more birds come to rest on it. It’s vividly green against the faded browns of the rest of the Preserve in winter. He listens to Stiles breathe as it slows in relaxation. “I don’t want to have to join them just to keep you.”

“Dude, you’ll always have me,” Stiles says, quiet like they’re somewhere private and not out here in the woods.

There’s no blip in his heartbeat, but Scott has a hard time believing him anyway. So much has changed: if even his mom can completely freak out and avoid him for a week, Stiles can go, too. Scott draws his knees closer and crosses his arms and rests his chin on his forearm. “Wanna play C.O.D. on Monday?”

There’s a car turning on to the dirt driveway, but Stiles can’t hear it yet. He slurs, “Yeah, sure, kick off break the right way.”

The breeze is going the wrong way to smell who’s in the car, but there are only so many people who’d come out this way. Scott stands, and puts himself between the road and Stiles. Stiles cranes his head to look at him. “‘S just Derek,” he says, then resettles his head comfortably and closes his eyes.

Sure enough, the Camaro roars into view, and it’s unsettling how Stiles knew that. Derek stops in a spray of gravel, and sits there staring at the Hale - at what used to be the remains of the Hale house. He looks confused, devastated, like someone’s lopped off a limb and he’s just noticing. He looks anguished and unsteady, and then he looks at Scott and his face shutters to its usual blank and faintly angry.

Scott looks away. Obviously Derek doesn’t like him any more than he likes Derek, and even if - well, there’s no way he and Derek will ever end up in the same pack. Derek gets out of the car and slams the door and stalks angrily towards Stiles. “What did you do?”

Stiles lifts a hand in a wave, then drops it again. “Hey, big guy. You’re obviously right on point for observation skills today. I’m having a picnic.”

“Why?” Derek’s voice cracks.

It feels really private, in a kind of gross way that Scott doesn’t want to see between Stiles and Derek. Derek’s old, and the source of, not evil, okay, probably not actual evil, but he causes all sorts of pain and misery and he totally sucks. It feels private like the times when they’d been kids and running in and out of the Stilinski house and they’d caught the Sheriff and Mrs. Stilinski when they hadn’t thought there’d been anyone else around. It wasn’t even kissing, because at that age everybody’s parents kissed and it was gross but it was what parents did: it was the way they’d hug, or just look at each other, like no one else was real at all. Scott knows he got that way about Allison, but Stiles has never been that way about anyone, and this isn’t even - this is just wordless staring, and nothing’s romantic, but Scott feels like he’s intruding anyway.  
He doesn’t want to be here anymore, and shifts from foot to foot.

That snaps Derek out of it, and he frowns more. The cessation of Derek’s stare seems to be Stiles’ cue to talk again. “You know it needed to happen, for a lot of reasons.”

Derek’s face twists, and Scott could totally be gone right now: he’s seen what Stiles wanted to show him and he’s as sure as he can be that Derek won’t actually hurt Stiles even though Stiles kind of broke his creepy Batcave. But Stiles is his ride, and he could run back to his house, and he probably should. Scott narrows his eyes at the two of them. “Can you two do this later? Stiles was going to drive me home.”

Stiles sighs. “Yeah, sure, buddy.” He starts to haul himself to his feet, and Scott can hear his heart kick up. Stiles sways, and Derek shoves past Scott to drag Stiles to his feet.

“You completely drained yourself, you idiot.”

Stiles pats Derek on the chest, either reassuring or groping. “And I’ll need to keep doing stuff to keep it down to near where my capacity should be, so maybe you should be the one to talk Deaton into letting me try the fun spells.”

“Um,” says Scott, partly to make them stop ignoring him. “Are you even good to drive?”

Stiles waves one hand, the one not clutching Derek’s henley. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Only thing that’s not up to scratch is kicking werewolf ass, and that’ll be back to normal real soon.”

He steps free of Derek and grabs his stuff, and seems unsteady on his feet but not in imminent danger of collapse. He shoves his socks in his pocket, though, and just shoves his feet bare into his shoes. When he puts his ring on, it flares gold then red and holds on red a minute before it fades. “C’mon, Scott. Derek, come by later. Use the door.”

Scott gets into the Jeep, and looks at Derek as he closes the door. Derek looks lost, but then he meets Scott’s gaze and sets his jaw and turns away. “How’d he know to come running, anyway?”

“Pack link,” Stiles says. “It’s how we knew when Jackson was going to get back, and how we knew when he got attacked on the way. You’d like it, I think, or at least the assurance of backup. Plus you can always feel that you’re not alone.”

It’s heavy-handed, even for Stiles, so Scott rolls his eyes.

“I’m still not joining Derek’s pack, Stiles.”

Stiles sighs. “Yeah, I know. Just, think about it, yeah?”

They’ve had this conversation too many times, and variations of it. “I have, Stiles. Can we - can we just not right now? Tell me about your magic.”

Stiles is usually pretty distractible, but he makes a face. “I told you about it. At least with having done this, it’s taken a huge chunk of what I had readily available. It’ll take time for it to build back up, and it’s a lot easier, with Danny and Jackson now. But it was still more than we could all handle, and I’ve been working - I’ve been trying, but it’s not enough. It’ll still stress them out when I let it build up too much. Enough that something weird might happen with Danny, enough that we’d have to keep more of an eye on Jackson because his control is still shit. I didn’t pick them because I wanted to, but you saw, right, you saw why I couldn’t pick you?”

“Yeah, I saw. And I don’t blame you - Stiles, my control still sucks, we’d probably have ended up exploding the water tower like we always said we would if we were supervillains. But you’re always with them.”

“That’s why we’re doing C.O.D., though, right?”

Scott sighs. He’s having trouble articulating how alone he feels without shouting at Stiles for abandoning him. And he gets it, he does, that was a really very impressive demonstration. But understanding and feeling are not the same thing. “Yeah. Just need to survive tomorrow and then it’s glorious freedom until next year.”

“Oh, yeah, speaking of next year. The election’s in March. Want to help out with my dad’s campaign again?”

Scott thumps his head back against the headrest. “Wow. Do you think he even has a shot with all the crap that’s happened?”

Stiles juts out his chin. “Well, that’s why we’re going to work on it. And make sure there aren’t any other big incidents.”

“Can we do posters again?” Scott grins at the memory of the last election, when they were thirteen and thought that papering the entire outside of the Sheriff’s department was the best possible idea.

Some of the tension in Stiles eases, and he snorts in amusement. “Any more public defacement and he may actually throw us in jail, knowledge of werewolves or not.”

Stiles pulls to a stop outside Scott’s house, and doesn’t turn off the Jeep.

“You’re not coming in?”

“No, I’m gonna go home and pass out.” Stiles speeds away, and Scott watches him go. It feels like a good metaphor, watching Stiles drive away from him.

Scott goes in, and his mom is still at work, but she’s brought down a box of Christmas decorations. They always decorate together, but it’s a good reminder anyway, and he brings down the rest of the boxes. By the time he’s grabbed all of them, including the big awkward box with the tree in it, he’s covered in dust and weirdly sweaty from exertion. It’s not like anything was particularly heavy. But since he’s sweaty already, he starts his workout, the series of push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups and stuff that keep him - well, actually, he’s not sure if he’d stop being buff if he stopped working out, but it at least fills time.

When he’s done and showered and has grabbed leftover meatloaf from the fridge, he does his homework. He’s diligent about it now, partly to make up for the hell that was the second semester of his sophomore year, partly because he can be. It’s not like any of his friends spend time with him, not since he made it clear to Isaac that he wasn’t interested in any pack, especially not in joining Derek’s.

He studies for the SATs, too, because he’s taking those in January and the vocabulary list they gave him is long, and not all stuff he’s encountered before. He’s not even taking English this year until next semester. He’s given himself plenty of time to take the SATs twice, if he needs to. He doesn’t want to. All of the weird and crazy stuff that started last winter doesn’t give you second chances unless you’re evil and get them at the cost of someone else: Peter’s life, Gerard’s foiled attempt at longer life, Deucalion’s sight, the necromancer’s safety. The SATs are normal, and they do have second chances, but he doesn’t want to let himself fall into a pattern of needing them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oak, lupine, and bleeding heart are all native to Northern California. Lavender is not: it’s soothing, but also symbolizes devotion and/or distrust in flower language. Stiles may or may not have picked oak on purpose, but he definitely picked the flowers, because he's a dick.


	2. The silence in between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott gets his tattoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the single happiest chapter of the entire series so far.
> 
> Enjoy it while it lasts.

He works Saturday all day, because it’s the only day he can do a full eight-hour shift. Stiles comes in at around three, and stinks like gun oil. Scott wrinkles his nose at him exaggeratedly. “He’s with a client right now, but he said to let you in the back.”

Stiles nods. “Cool. He tell you what I’m supposed to work on?”

“He never tells me what you guys are doing.” Scott smiles, aware it’s a little lacklustre. “He only tells me about werewolf mojo, and we haven’t had to talk about that in forever, since pulling pain’s about all I can do.”

Stiles claps him on the shoulder as they walk to the stockroom. “I have heard all about this mysterious werewolf mojo. I’m definitely keeping one of you guys around for when I inevitably get my ass kicked again. I want to do science comparing wolfy stuff to vicodin.”

“Or you could just not get hurt?”

Stiles scoffs like Scott knew he would. “It’s a miracle I haven’t broken anything yet.”

Scott shows Stiles the pile of leaves and sticks and stuff that Deaton had set out earlier, then goes back out front. Time was he’d have stayed with Stiles to chat, but it’s a Saturday, and they get walk-ins, and he should check on the feeding schedule to see what everyone’s on so he can get the animals fed and medicated. When Deaton comes out, Scott smiles politely and says, “Doctor Deaton, your next appointment is in the back. Everything good for Oliver?”

“Yes, we’re all set until next year. Brett, good to see you.”

Deaton lets Brett (Mister Harper to Scott) open the swinging door himself, something Scott didn’t realize until super-belatedly was to check to see that his clients were human. Deaton smiles at him. “Stiles is here?”

“Yeah, in the stockroom.”

Deaton nods, and disappears into the back. “Please make sure we’re not disturbed,” he says at a conversational volume from inside the stockroom, and it’s still weird how comfortable he is with werewolf shenanigans. Then all sound from the stockroom stops, like they’ve both suddenly died. Even though it happens almost every time, it hasn’t stopped being unsettling.

There’s a sense of energy rising and pressure dropping, fast like that time he and his mom visited family in Texas and a thunderstorm boiled in. One of the cats starts yowling, and a couple dogs are making restless distressed noises, and Scott doesn’t blame them at all. Stiles and Deaton don’t usually do this, don’t usually do anything that distresses the animals except sometimes deal with funky-smelling herbs.

Scott stops measuring out dog food and goes to the cages, touching the most distressed animals and taking the pain that the sudden change in pressure brought them. None of the animals try to hurt him, since they all recognize that he’s a bigger predator than they are, but one of the dogs whines low when Scott touches her, not wanting him anywhere near her.

A wave of calm washes out from the stockroom, and the animals chill out. Scott feels the sudden instense desire for a nap himself, and dazedly contemplates yelling at Stiles and Deaton for being all manipulative. It’s all he can do, though, to cling to the side of one of the cages and not just lay down and sleep. He hates it, hates that part of him is an animal now, hates more that he can’t always cordon off bits and point at them and say that this, this piece right here, that’s the werewolf, that’s separate.

He grits his teeth and stumbles through finishing feeding the animals, and by the time he’s done the wave of calm has ebbed enough that he can keep going about his workday. An hour or so later, and Stiles comes out from the back. He barely smells of ozone at all, and he looks like death. Scott watches him go, and snaps his jaw shut when he realizes it’s been hanging open in shock and concern.

Stiles waves casually as he opens the door. “See you Monday.”

“Uh, yeah,” Scott says, a beat slow enough that the door is already swinging closed. “Uh, Doctor Deaton, there were -”

“I know, Scott. We should be able to avoid that in future.” Deaton smiles reassuringly. It’s not reassuring at all.

Scott nods. “Cool. I’m going to go sterilize the exam room.”

When the clinic is closed, he goes for a run, still in his work clothes. He runs until his lungs burn, but it’s not panic-inducing like it used to be. That’s probably the best thing about being a werewolf, the fact that he knows that when he stops to catch his breath, he’ll actually catch it, not pass out and potentially die and wake up in the ER with his mom yelling at him. He runs for miles and miles, until he’s closer to Sacramento than Beacon Hills, and then runs back. He’s viciously dehydrated by the time he gets home, but he feels better. He feels good, almost, or as close as he has in a while. He drinks about a gallon of water and showers and checks his bank account online.

He has automatic payments that go into a college fund, and whenever he picks up groceries he uses his checking account instead of his mom’s credit card, but with this last paycheck it looks like he finally has enough. He calls and makes the appointment, incredibly pleased.

Ten in the morning on Monday, Stiles comes in the window and lands on Scott’s head. He’d be angry about it, but it’s the closest to the way things were that they’ve come to in ages, so Scott just hits Stiles with a pillow and makes grabbing motions at the pastry bag in his hand. “Gimme.”

“Coffee,” Stiles demands.

Scott sighs, but rolls over and out of bed. He grabs a pair of sweatpants to put on over his boxers and an old Tshirt and leads Stiles downstairs. There’s half a pot of coffee, still warm, because his mom’s on afternoons all this week. Stiles finally relinquishes the bakery bag, leaving it on the table as he grabs a mug.

Scott dives in and pulls out a huge lemon poppyseed muffin and takes the biggest bite he can out of it. He doesn’t drink coffee, and isn’t about to start now when it won’t even do anything. “I had an idea,” Scott says around his mouthful of muffin.

Stiles clutches his chest dramatically. “Oh my God, we’re going to die.”

It falls a little flatter than it would have a year ago, but Scott grimaces at him like it doesn’t sting. “I want to get a tattoo.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’ll be great, in fourteen months. It’s illegal, Scott.”

“We’ve got fake IDs! And it’s way less illegal than some of the other stuff we’ve done.”

Stiles gulps down coffee and raises his eyebrows. “So you’re totally going to be able to hide it from my dad 100%?”

Scott scowls at his muffin. “Think we could convince him it’s an important werewolf rite of passage?”

“Yeah, totally, if you ever showed up for werewolf hang time at my house. But dude, it’s your call. Just don’t get something super-conspicuous and you should be fine.”

“Uh.”

“Oh my God, Scott. You should join the pack just so we can save you from your own stupidity.”

Scott scowls at him. He’s not as smart as Stiles, yeah, but just because his best friend is a genius doesn’t actually make him an idiot by anything but comparison. “Fine, don’t come, then.”

Stiles’ eyes go wide. “You’re doing it today?”

Scott shrugs, then grins. “I’ve got all of break to practice hiding it.”

Stiles finishes his coffee and rinses the mug and puts it in the dishwasher as Scott finishes his muffin. He has his thinking-face on, so Scott doesn’t interrupt. He’s pretty sure - maybe 70% - that Stiles will decide to come with him. “What time is your appointment?”

“Not until two.”

Stiles considers again, then gives in visibly, sagging against the counter. “This is the worst idea.”

Scott’s face feels like it’s going to split in half from how hard he’s grinning. Getting Stiles to go along with one of his plans is a return to the way things should be, even if it used to be mostly going along with Stiles’ plans. “Want to play video games until we have to leave?”

They play Mario Kart, cackling madly as they send each other driving into oblivion. Cartoon violence with rainbows and blue shells is possibly the best escapism from their real life: they’ve only had the one car chase.

His mom gets off the phone with her brother eventually, and stops swearing in Spanish when she sees Stiles. She leans against the doorway, looking pleased. “I didn’t know you boys were hanging out.”

“Otherwise you’d have known to make more coffee?” Stiles asks, grinning.

His mom does the mock-frown Scott hasn’t seen in ages, the one that makes him ache. “You aren’t even old enough to be drinking coffee, Stiles.”

Stiles’ eyes go comically wide. “Oh, no, Ms. McCall. Does that mean I’m going to shrink away to nothing?”

“Smartass,” she says, smile on her lips. “I’m going to work. Scott, your uncle says your card arrived and they have it up. You should call him sometime while you’re on break - and make sure to talk to Maria and Toby, they’re sad they don’t get to see you.”

Scott nods, and has no intention of calling his uncle. His phone goes off at one-thirty, and he pauses their game. “We should probably go.”

Stiles manages to not bitch too much about what a stupid idea this is on the way to the tattoo parlour, and eventually gets around to asking what Scott’s getting. Scott just tells him two bands, because if he said concentric circles Stiles would extrapolate differently. There are a lot of reasons for what he’s getting, and he doesn’t want to talk about all of them. Or any of them, really. A brand of adulthood, an assertion that he can be whole and still separate, a reminder that he has a target painted on him, a reminder that the actions he takes have ripple effects. “It’s going to look awesome.”

The tattoo parlor is small, and checks Scott’s ID again even though they’d gone through the whole thing when he first came in to talk about it. The fake stands up to scrutiny, though, and soon Scott’s in a chair watching the big burly artist prep everything.

“Huh,” Stiles says, leaning closer as the artist readies the tattoo gun. “Y’know, I’ve never been good with needles.”

The gun starts, buzzing low and kind of menacing, and Stiles promptly passes out.

Scott rolls his eyes, but hops up from the chair to prop Stiles against the wall. ‘We should probably get him some ice.”

The artist grunts an affirmative noise and puts down the gun. “Yeah. We always keep some on hand, but it’s usually not the friend who passes out.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.” Stiles doesn’t smell hurt, not really, but there are a ton of other scents in here, and Scott can mostly only differentiate Stiles because of the stink of magic.

The artist hands him a sandwich bag filled with ice, and Scott just kind of sets it on top of Stiles’ head and gets up and gets back in the chair. The tattoo itself is a kind of prickling buzzing burn, not necessarily painful but kind of deeply uncomfortable. He breathes through it, because it’s discomfort he’s chosen, and that’s the important part. The fact that he’s doing this on purpose, that he’s paying for this to happen, makes the discomfort deeply satisfying.

Stiles comes around fairly quickly, but stays on the floor where he can’t really see the proceedings. He stays mostly quiet, too, which is weird; Stiles can usually find something to talk about.

Around the time the second band is started, Stiles finds his voice again, and asks for stories about the weirdest tattoos the artist has done.

When it’s finally over, Scott can’t stop grinning at the gauze. It’s fantastic. He has his tattoo, finally, and it hurts in a good way. He feels centred, and grown-up.

Stiles only mutters a little bit about how it was all a horrible idea.


	3. You can’t choose what stays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two months later, here is an update, with werewolf tattoos.

The itch and burn from his healing tattoo wakes him Tuesday morning, but he ignores it as best he can. It’ll be fine, and should be healed by tonight at the very latest, anyway. It’s actually a little weird that it hasn’t healed already, but Scott ignores that thought and gets started on his morning workout.

By the time he has to shower for work, it’s still itchy, but he tries not to scratch. Okay, yeah, he scrubs it a little raw with his loofah, but that’s what they’re for. It looks less angry, at least, and the swelling’s mostly gone.

It’s not really a fight not to scratch at work, because he’s always been conscious of the kinds of things animals carry, and even though he’s immune to most things now he still has the same habits. The tattoo is still maddening, though, and Scott worries that there might be something wrong. This is healing too slowly, and too strange. It’s not that werewolves can’t have tattoos, obviously, since Derek has one and one of the alpha pack - he never knew them as people, just as adversaries and corpses - had a bunch.

He looks at it on his first break, and it’s not red anymore, at least. The swelling’s gone, and it looks weeks-old. That’s good, that’s something. It still itches, but whatever. When he gets back to the front, Chris is there talking to Deaton, and that’s a shock and an affront to the senses, because Scott hadn’t heard him arrive. He smiles, strained, because Chris totally helped with the necromancer thing, and everything being worse after wasn’t directly his fault.

Allison comes in, and her heartbeat’s still perfect music. It thuds hard, once, when she spots him, and picks up a little. Her face gives away nothing.

He smiles at her tentatively, and she smiles tightly back.

Deaton turns to look at him. “Ah, Scott. The Argents are looking for a cat. Will you please show them the cats currently available for adoption?”

“Uh, okay. Right this way, Mr. Argent, Allison. What did you have in mind? We have a really gorgeous long-hair in right now, but if you’d worried about shedding -”

“Are they all litter-box trained?”

Scott pushes open the door to the room with the cats up for adoption and reminds himself to chill out. “Yes, Mr. Argent. Um, here, let’s start with Rex. He’s neutered, he’s six, he’s really relaxed.”

Rex is some kind of mix, at least part of which is Maine Coon, and a solid 18 pounds, with a malevolent gaze and fur like petting bunnies made of silk. He’s also the only cat in the whole place who can tolerate Stiles, which isn’t necessarily a selling point for Mr. Argent, but kind of endears him to Scott. “But, uh, are any of the people you have over a lot allergic? Because if so, you might want to look at a female cat. They produce fewer allergens than males, though neutered males are better than regular toms for sneezing and stuff.”

“Thank you, Scott,” says Mr. Argent. “Can we meet any of the other cats before we make our decision?”

Scott moves what he knows is slightly too fast to be human in his rush to show them the next cat. They end up picking a small female tabby, a quiet one who only barely sniffs at Allison’s fingers before ignoring everyone, and Scott grabs Deaton for the paperwork part. Since Mr. Argent needs to fill out most of it, that leaves him and Allison at loose ends.

They stand on opposite sides of the counter, and she just smells so good, like resin and rain and herself, that he could breathe her in all day. She’s not looking at him, or not quite: he thinks he catches her glancing over, once or twice. She doesn’t say anything, though, and that makes sense, since her dad is there and it’s awkward enough when he isn’t.

They leave, and take the cat.

Scott throws himself into cleaning, because it occupies his hands, and he can make his brain go away. Time blurs, and then Deaton’s telling him to take his break, and he shrugs into a sweatshirt and goes down to the coffee shop a couple blocks away. They’ve got organic vegan sandwiches all wrapped in cellophane, and Scott could eat them by the truckload.

Ever since he became a werewolf he’s been able to taste food additives more clearly, and he deeply resents how taquitos have been ruined forever. He gets two sandwiches and a peppermint tea, and reads on his phone while he eats, just Cracked articles and fmylife, things that don’t require too much thinking. All he wants from life right now is an off switch for his brain so he can come back when people like him again.

Okay, that’s not fair, Deaton likes him fine. But Deaton likes Stiles and Derek, too. He’s not picky. Scott finishes his second sandwich and checks his tattoo in the bathroom. It looks normal, though it’s still itching. The swelling has gone down, and it’s all smooth skin and dark grey. He’d thought it’d stay true black instead of washing lighter, but, ugh, not much he can do about it. He might have to go back and get it redone. There has to be some kind of guarantee about it not healing blotchy and dull.

He re-covers it without washing it, because the soap in the bathroom is scented and werewolf healing is already making it fine, and goes back to work.

Isaac shows up at about five to close, waves awkwardly from the other side of the door and then just kind of skulks there. It makes Scott feel awful, because he likes Isaac, Isaac is nice, Isaac understands shitty fathers more than Stiles ever could and they can bond over not-talking about it and making homemade taquitos that always turn out kind of terrible. But Isaac’s part of a pack he will never be part of, and Isaac doesn’t really understand why he won’t join, and Isaac’s careful lack of pressure is a lot of pressure. Plus he reeks of Derek.

“Uh, can I?” Scott says to Deaton, gesturing to the door.

“Isaac can come in, Scott, and wait while you finish up.”

Scott grins at him as Isaac lets himself in. “Thanks. Hey, Isaac, come on in back, I just need to do one more round with the animals.”

He does his cage check and gives meds to the animals who need it, and is done by quarter after close. Isaac just waits for him, petting Rex, who is utterly indifferent to the attention. While Scott’s finishing locking up, he says, “So, can I see your tattoo?”

Scott shoots a quick look at him, because there shouldn’t be any change in smell: Derek doesn’t smell like ink or anything.

“Stiles told me.”

“Oh. Okay.” His mom’ll be working another couple hours. “Come back to my place? I don’t really want to show it off where someone who knows my mom could drive by.”

Isaac glances around the empty parking lot. “Sure. Did you drive?”

“I ran. How -”

“Erica dropped me off. Uh, I guess we run?”

It feels like it should be awkward, running in a context other than at school, running with another wolf. It’s not: they fall in easily together, running more than human-fast. Scott’s a little out of breath when they get to his place, because Isaac’s fast, but they tumble through the door together. “I can’t believe your fake’s good enough to get a tattoo. Now show me.”

Scott rolls up his sleeve and takes the bandage off and - okay. That’s not supposed to look like that.

Isaac raises one eyebrow. “Interesting choice.”

“No, it’s not supposed to look like that! It was two bands, not weird blotchy gross stuff!”

“I’m going to call Derek,” he says, taking a step away and bringing out his phone.

No, dammit, no, he doesn’t want Derek called in like he’s some problem to be solved. “It’s fine! I’ll just go and get it redone.”

“It might be a werewolf thing, Scott. Are you sure?”

He wants to be sure, but Isaac has a point. Scott sighs. “I’ll call him.”

He pulls out his phone and calls Derek, and it only rings once before Derek says, “Scott.”

“Hey,” he says awkwardly. “So I got a tattoo, and -”

Derek sighs dramatically. “You got it from a human place, didn’t you?”

“Yes?”

“Is it completely gone yet?”

The noise he lets out isn’t a screech, he swears. “It’s going to fade away completely?”

“Not - look, there’s a way to make it permanent. It’s not fun. Do you want to do it?”

“You could take it, and so can I,” Scott snaps. “What do I have to do?”

Derek pauses. “Have Isaac take you to the warehouse. I’ll meet you there.”

Scott hangs up. “I guess we’re going to a warehouse.”

“Yeah. Are we running or hitting up Stiles for a ride?”

Scott hesitates. It’d be nice to have Stiles there, but Stiles hates needles, and he might not even come. “Let’s just run. I usually do twenty miles in an evening anyway.”

Isaac raises a faintly inquisitive eyebrow, then says, “Sure.”

They run again, and Isaac’s not just faster, he’s got better endurance. Part of being in a pack, Scott thinks bitterly. They get to the warehouse in under twenty minutes, even though it’s on the other side of town. Scott’s sweaty and a little out of breath, but Isaac still looks perfectly fresh.

The warehouse itself looks pretty abandoned, and doesn’t smell like they’re there all that much, though the lights come on with a flicker and hum when Isaac flips a switch. Derek’s already there, lurking in the dark like a creeper.

“Is that a blowtorch?” Scott knows his voice comes out high and strangled, but fuck trying to sound cool: that is definitely a blowtorch.

Derek makes some kind of bitch-face at him, like he expects Scott to run away. “It’s the only way to be marked permanently.”

Scott swallows with a dry click he knows they can both hear. But fuck it: Derek has all this trauma about fire, and he still managed it. Scott refuses to be less than Derek, because Derek is a shit person and a shit alpha werewolf and Derek stole his best friend. “Let’s do it,” he says, and strips off his shirt. It’s cold in the warehouse without it, and getting colder now that the sun’s gone down, but Scott just rips off the bandage, too, because he wants to get this over with.

Derek turns on the blowtorch, then looks up through his stupid girly eyelashes like he expects Scott to run. Scott juts out his chin and stays where he is, suppressing a shiver. “Scott, on the ground. Isaac, hold him.”

Scott lays down on the concrete, and Isaac takes his shoulders, holding him down and smiling apologetically and upside-down. He thinks that he’ll try to hold himself still, not fight like some feral thing, make it easier on Isaac and easier to hold his own head high after. Then Derek’s there, his eyes red and fire in his hands.

The first touch of flame has Scott wolfing out, scrabbling at the concrete and jerking away. It hurts, it burns, all his flesh is going to fall off like overdone barbecue. He sobs, once, and looks at Derek. Derek looks calm except for the red eyes, holding Scott’s arm in one hand and the blowtorch in the other. He’s drawing the flame down Scott’s arm all deliberate and careful and agonizing.

Scott’s arching off the concrete and screaming when Derek does the sensitive inner part of his bicep, and then it’s over, oh, thank Jesus and Mary it’s over, Derek’s put the flame out. His skin still feels like it’s on fire, but there are no fresh excruciating licks of heat, just pain and the lingering smell of barbecued pork.

He lays flat on his back on the concrete and squeezes his eyes closed and tries to stem the flow of tears leaking steadily down the side of his face. “So no more tattoos for me,” he tries to joke, and his voice comes out wobbly and hoarse.

“You’re not healing normally,” Derek says quietly. “You’re healing like -”

When Derek stops, Scott can both feel and hear his heart rate kick up. He knows what’s coming: has known for a while, because even his human ‘pack’ isn’t really pack anymore.

“Scott, you know you’re an omega, right?”

“I know,” he spits out, and scrambles back and away. He feels overexposed, all of his vulnerable squishy bits too open for attack in this conversation. “Thanks for the - whatever. I’m going to go.”

He bolts out into the night fully aware that either of them could catch him easily, and pathetically grateful when they don’t try.


	4. The night time fear

His tattoo is black and permanent-looking under the swelling by Christmas Day, which is a fantastic present. He and his mom have a lazy breakfast and open their presents and drink egg nog from the carton, and it’s good. It’s exactly like the other years since his dad left.

She goes in to work at noon, and Scott cleans up the discarded wrapping paper and then plays video games in his pajamas all day. Usually Stiles texts him to come over for dinner at some point, because his dad works the afternoon, too. Scott doesn’t really realize that he hasn’t until the sun is down and the evening’s getting cold.

He spikes his next cup of eggnog with rum, even though it won’t do anything, and toast’s his abuela and puts on a fucking Charlie Brown movie. It seems like the thing to do, since he’s apparently alone. He even gets a head start on his thank you notes, going from the list he’d made of who gave him what. There’s only so much he can say about socks, but he’s got a formula. He watches Die Hard after the Charlie Brown movie, because it seems appropriate, and falls asleep to the sound of cinematic gun fire.

He wakes up when his mom’s car pulls into the driveway, and scurries upstairs before she can find him and worry.

The morning’s clear and cold, and he holds out hope for snow. His arm still really hurts, and is throbbing a little, so he checks it and makes a face at the gross mess and cleans it and rebandages it. So what if he’s an omega? He’s still healing way faster than a human, and no one gets to mind-control him.

The snow hasn’t started by the time he has to leave for work, but he takes a jacket anyway, just in case.

Work is - work. Deaton doesn’t seemed to have noticed anything different, so it can’t be that big a deal that he’s an omega. Deaton would say something.

When he gets home, his mom’s set up most of the big Christmas meal they usually have, ham and yams and potatoes and green bean casserole, and he grins at her. “That smells amazing. I’m just gonna go shower and then I’ll set the table, okay?”

She flaps a hand at him. “Hurry up.”

She comes to knock on the bathroom door when he takes too long, which is bad, really bad. He hadn't closed it all the way, because it gets steamy if he does and he wanted to be able to see his arm in the mirror.

He's putting burn cream on it from the first aid kit he's barely touched in months when the door swings open, and they both gape at each other in horror. "Mom!"

"What is that?" she demands. "Scott, baby, what did you do to yourself?"

He tries to smile, make this not a big deal: it's his body, after all, and he's practically an adult, even if he hadn't planned to show her until he was legally an adult. "I got a tattoo?"

Her eyes go wide and she raises both eyebrows. "I've seen some tattoos in my time, Scott, and they don't usually look like third degree burns."

He shrugs carefully. "It's a werewolf thing."

"Shouldn't it have healed by now?" She steps forward and takes his upper arm on either side of the tattoo, examining it.

"Uh, yeah. That's why I'm -" he gestures with the burn cream instead of finishing his sentence.

She takes it from him, and starts smoothing it on. "Is this normal? Should you be seeing Doctor Deaton?"

"It's fine?" He clears his throat and tries again, because it is fine, because being on his own is the best thing for him right now. "It's fine. I just have a bit of a longer healing time now, but it should be all back to normal in a day or two. I'll just have a tattoo!"

She presses her lips together so they form a straight line, but keeps going with the burn cream. “If you decide you want more tattoos, you need to wait until it’s legal, and find a way that doesn’t leave you covered in burns.”

He grins at her, relieved. “Yes, Mom. Can we have dinner now? I’m starving.”

He still has to set the table, and they have their Christmas dinner, and it’s nice. It tastes like tradition and home and love.

The moon’s bright and rounded the next day, and his arm is all healed. He’s kind of on edge, but it’s not bad, and he gets through work just fine. Well, he thinks it’s fine. But Deaton looks at him at the end of the day and says, “You’ve been working hard, Scott, why don’t you take tomorrow off?”

Which is probably Deaton-code for thinking he’s going to snap. Scott’s halfway through growling a protest that he’s fine when he realizes: growling. “Thanks,” he says weakly. “Yeah, I . . . thanks.”

He runs and runs and runs through the woods until it’s dark and the waxing moon is high. It looks nearly full, but he can feel that it’s not: can feel that the pull isn’t as strong as it’ll be tomorrow. He backs up against a tree, far out of Beacon Hills, and sinks so he’s sitting with his back to it. He watches the moon, and feels sick, because tomorrow’s going to be awful.

Scott takes out his phone, and is tempted to call Stiles, but Stiles won’t be any help. If Stiles was any help, control wouldn’t be an issue, because he’d be able to make Stiles his anchor now that Allison’s pushed him away, now that it’s not okay for him to lurk on her roof when the full moon gets bad. He thunks his head back against the bark. He’s going to have to make sure he’s away from people tomorrow, deep in the woods or chained up in his room. If he handcuffs himself and gives his mom the key, that might work, though then she’d have to hear him when he’s a monster.

Eventually he has to go home, and his limbs are dragging despite the toxic moon running through his veins. His mom looks at him worriedly, and he can’t ask her, he can’t, she has enough to deal with. He’ll find another way.

He showers and sleeps and spends the next day signing up online to take the SAT and then playing video games. When he dies in Luigi’s Mansion he wolfs out a bit and the plastic of the controller creaks in strain.

He decides it’s time to go running. It’s only a little after noon, but -

He takes a water bottle, and heads out next to the highway. He’ll run to the coast, if he has to. He runs and runs, and the sun’s falling slowly westward, shining bright in his face. He goes miles and miles, and the woods give way to redwood, tall and making him feel tiny. It makes breathing easier, and then it doesn’t.

There’s something unsettled, like he’s in the wrong place, somewhere he shouldn’t be, somewhere that’s not his. Scott stops, and leans against a tree, and drinks some of his water. His phone rings, and he takes it out with a hand that won’t stop shaking. “Hello?”

“Oh, thank God, dude. Where are you?”

“Uh.”

“Fuck,” Stiles says, and that makes Scott’s claws come out, because Stiles only ever swears when things are trouble. He nicks his own ear, and the blood tickles.

“What’s wrong?”

“You need to be back here by five thirty at the latest. Earlier is better. Now is best.”

He starts jogging back the way he came, following his own scent trail. “What’s going on?”

“Allison’s not your anchor any more, is she?”

Scott can feel his teeth elongate, and fuck Stiles. Fuck Stiles for bringing it up and for having a point and for being right. He stops, and jams the button to hang up, and shoves the phone back in his pocket with hands that still have claws. Breathing slow and even, he forces back the part of himself that’s an animal until his face and hands shift back normal. He might not be able to hold it very long, but he’ll get back to Beacon Hills, get to Stiles’ house and let him lock him up or whatever he has planned.

He runs. The trees get smaller, fade back to what he’s used to. Then, abruptly, as the sun sinks towards the trees, he feels at home again. It’s not even five yet, but it’s getting dark, because midwinter is ridiculous.

Scott stops at the edge of town, just outside the suburb Danny lives in, and drinks the rest of his water. Someone coming out of a driveway shifts so their gears grind, and it sets Scott enough on edge that his claws pierce the water bottle.

This is worse than his first full moon, and it’s not made better when Stiles’ Jeep pulls up, Isaac in the passenger seat. Isaac shoves open the door, then clambers into the back. Stiles looks pale and tense, and orders, “Get in.”

He doesn’t like being told what to do, never has, and violent objection just seems really reasonable right now. But Scott tightens his jaw and gets in the Jeep, because the moon is coming. “What’s the plan?” he asks, getting in and doing up his seatbelt.

“I may have dusted the manacles Derek had when I razed the Hale House, and Peter and Derek don’t think we can contain you with what we have on short notice.” Stiles glances over at him, quick and searching. “No one had expected -”

“So I’m an omega. So what?”

Stiles lets out a huff of breath. “So you’ll lose all control when the moon comes up - which, half an hour, cutting it a little close, asshole. We’re going to the Preserve where we can keep you away from people.”

Scott looks out the window and flexes his hands so his still-human nails are pressing into his palms. “Fine.”

Stiles drives fast, faster than he usually does, and nearly bursts out of the car as soon as he’s parked. Scott’s legs are tensing before he can think about it, coiling to chase.

Then the moon is up, just a sliver over the horizon, but a sliver of pure heady lunacy.

Things get a little fuzzy after that.

He’s running through the forest, chasing something. Other werewolves drive him away from his prey, or become prey when they run, and he can’t catch them. At least one of them smells like he could be pack, and Scott chases him deeper into the woods. They get close to one edge, and all he can think is Allisonallison _allison_ and then there’s someone in his way, not wolf at all, and Scott bats him out of the way. He wants Allison, just to burrow his way into her bed. She smells so good and tastes so good and feels so good and - the menacing glare of red eyes sends him in the other direction.

He doesn’t want an alpha, doesn’t want to be alpha prey, wants to belong but not be owned. He howls defiance, and it bounces back to him. The sound is lonely.

When he sees red eyes again, he chases, and tries to rip the alpha’s head off. The alpha doesn’t fight him, just throws him away like he’s not even a real threat, then disappears. Betas chase him for a while, and a human it dimly registers that he doesn’t want to hurt.

Time doesn’t matter, because there’s just the moon. It calls him and pushes him to run, run fast and far in search of mindless freedom. He wants to rend and tear and hunt, but mostly just to run, so he does.

The forest is lightening towards dawn, and he’s still running, because the pack who’s been taunting him won’t let him go back home. The human’s back with them, and he smells like alpha and blood and Stiles.

Stiles.

Stiles and blood.

The moon fades in importance, and Scott grabs on to the thought that he was acting like something Allison would have to put down. He looks wildly at Stiles, at Derek. “I’m a monster.”

“You have no control because you’re an omega,” says Stiles.

“If you’re not going to join our pack, you need to find another one that’ll take you. This is not how I want to spend my full moons,” says Boyd. He’s as close to Stiles as Derek is, flanking him, his claws out and posture defensive.

Scott - oh God. Scott clawed Stiles. His voice, when he can force words out past his teeth, is strained to the point of cracking. “Will you - will you take me?”

Derek’s face softens, and Scott feels another surge of wild rage, because he doesn’t want pity, he doesn’t want to owe Derek anything, he just wants Derek to never have stolen his best friend. He reins it in best he can, which really isn’t very good, and Derek says, “Yes.”

”Do it,” he says, because he can’t keep doing this on his own. He stands still and quivers as Derek comes up to him, looking all gentle like he of all people never should. It shouldn’t hurt for too long, if Derek bites him again. He won’t be an omega, so he’ll heal as quick as everyone else, even from a wound from an alpha.

Derek takes his arm, and draws a claw down his forearm, and his blood flows freely. Then he cuts his own arm, and clasps their forearms together.


	5. some kind of resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who commented on it or talked to me about this as I was writing it, and to AlwaysBoth for all of the betaing. You’re a goddamn miracle, AB.
> 
> The title and chapter titles are all from Florence and the Machine’s _No Light, No Light_.
> 
> The next installment will probably be a while - I got back into university and am still working full time, and I also have another couple of things in progress.
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://uswe.tumblr.com).

The sun is rising, chasing the moon down past the horizon. Scott’s arm heals as he watches. His tattoo feels fine for the first time since he got it. There’s also this whole new sense, or rather a change in the one that’s made him feel unsettled all night: he can feel the pack around him, keeping him tethered, telling him he’s home.

It’s seven-thirty in the morning, and Scott is part of the Hale pack.

It feels kind of like the world is ending. He waits for the tidal loss of control that came with Peter’s compulsions, but it doesn’t materialize, and keeps not materializing. Stiles steps forward and claps Derek on the shoulder, then Scott. Scott thinks he’d be going for a group hug, but, well, his mobility’s compromised by the fact that Scott tore him open in his lunacy.

“Come on,” Stiles says. “There’s pancake mix and like four kinds of syrup back at Derek’s apartment.”

“Okay,” Scott says quietly. “Thanks.” The thanks feels raw and glass-edged as it comes out his throat, because he never wanted any of this. He wanted the opposite of this, he wanted to be normal. But he’s not - never will be - because he has new compass points: the agoraphobic press of alpha; Stiles, still steady as a rock. He can figure out the rest of them because he can see as well as feel them. Boyd’s near as steady as Stiles but warm; Erica feels slick and hard; Isaac’s the one who feels like he might slip away; Peter feels like a fading bruise. Farther away, it has to be Danny that feels like electrical buzz, because there’s no way it’s not Jackson who feels like broken glass. He pushes the feeling away, because it makes him miserable, and they fade to background, all of them but Derek and Stiles. He kind of wants to curl up right here on the forest floor and nap until everything goes away.

But Stiles smells like blood, and that’s on Scott, so he goes where Stiles tells him, and puts on the T-shirt Stiles hands him from the Jeep, because the one he’s wearing is a wreck. He crawls in the back of the Jeep as Stiles patches up his own shoulder. They all get into the vehicles in the parking lot, everyone dispersing like they already know where to go. Erica gets in the passenger seat of the Jeep, giving Scott a hard look.

Scott tucks his hands between his knees. Derek’s pack have all been kind of protective of Stiles as their token squishy human. He gets it, he really does: he was a threat to Stiles tonight, actually injured him, which is the opposite of cool.

Stiles drives him to an apartment building, one Scott’s never been to before, and parks like it’s his usual space. Scott feels uncomfortable in his own skin as he crawls out, and bone tired. Erica bumps into his shoulder as they walk to the door. The contact’s weirdly rejuvenating.

The building is all normal. It smells like people and sleepy-morning and leftover Christmas. Derek, Isaac, Boyd and Peter are waiting at the elevator, and he wonders, absently, how they fit all of them in the Camaro, which barely has a backseat. Derek holds the door for them and they all squish in. The elevator’s not meant for this many people, so everything’s kind of squished. Eventually he might get comfortable sharing space with these people, with his pack.

Stiles obviously is already, steadying himself against the upward acceleration with a hand on Derek’s hip. It makes Scott uncomfortable, because no one else seems surprised, but before . . . this, things hadn’t gotten so bad between him and Stiles that Stiles would have neglected mentioning dating Derek. He watches them, and watches Peter, because unknown things and Peter are the biggest threats he knows.

It doesn’t seem to be a thing anyone talks about, and the elevator lets them out without any overt displays of affection from anyone. Isaac unlocks the door to an apartment, and Scott can smell the pancakes already cooking, and - he sniffs - Danny?

He follows everyone else into a decent-sized apartment, and, yeah, Danny’s making pancakes for them. Yeah, he’s definitely the one who feels like electrical buzz, but it’s weirdly soothing. Anyway, everything smells of pancakes as everyone starts stripping off their shoes. The prospect of food is almost overwhelmingly good.

Danny looks at him warily, then at Derek, then Stiles, who’s letting Isaac bleed off his pain. “We’re good, then?”

Jackson sighs huffily from the couch, not moving on his own even when Erica picks up his legs to sit under them. “You felt it, too, Danny.”

“I’m not quite as plugged in as you, Jackson. Besides, you were twitchy all night, how was I supposed to tell what was actually responding to things that matter and not just the moon?”

Jackson subsides and glares at Danny’s back, and Scott feels out of the loop. He catches Stiles looking at him, though, and for once it feels like he won’t be out of the loop forever. Scott feels his shoulders relax, releasing tension he hadn’t even been aware of carrying. Derek relaxes, too, and claps a hand on Stiles’ shoulder before he moves past him into the kitchen. “Do you have enough done for everyone to get started?”

“Yeah,” Danny says distractedly. “There’s a tray in the oven. If you can wait, there’s just maybe one more batch and then I’ll be able to actually join you.”

“Sounds good,” he says, and since when does Derek actually listen to anyone else, or care what anyone else wants?

A memory surfaces vividly, of Derek saying they were brothers, of it not ringing as a lie.

Derek disappears down the hall. Scott takes a seat on the arm of Stiles’ chair.

He has a pack, and there are pancakes, and it’s going to be okay.


End file.
